Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Finn
Mario is mid-jump when there’s a knock at my door.
I pause the game and stand—achy—and walk into the entryway to answer it, shocked when I pull it open and find Raya standing in the hallway.
Her face is tight, brows knit, like she’s here against her will.
My eyebrows shoot up and I give her a quick once-over. “Wait a second.”
I shut the door. Then I open it again. She’s still there.
“Is that actually you or have you been cloned?” I stick my head out the door, looking up and down the hallway. “Are you being held at gunpoint? Is there a bomb strapped to your chest? Blink twice if you’re in trouble!”
She stares at me. “I see the knock on your head didn’t make you any less insufferable. I guess that’s all I need to know.” She turns to go.
“Hold up, I’m just kidding—” I step out into the hallway, and she stops. “Did you come here . . .”
She almost turns around, but only halfway.
I narrow my gaze. “. . . to check on me?”
She straightens and turns away from me. “No.”
“You came here to check on me.” I don’t even try to hide the smile. “Ha! You were worried about me.”
She turns to me. “I wasn’t,” she says, tone dry, face straight.
I quirk a brow, studying her. “Then what are you doing here?”
She sighs, like she’s owning up to something. “I thought it was the decent thing to do. To check in. Since—you know . . .”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Since you checked on me.” She avoids my eyes, but I see her jaw clench.
“So. This is payback,” I say.
She shrugs. “I guess.”
“Well, I came to your house to check on you because I was worried about you.” I watch her. “Because I care.”
Her eyes flick to mine, and even though I have no proof—and it might be wishful thinking—I swear I see relief there.
I move out of the way of the door. “Do you want to come in?”
She stands there awkwardly, like a kid on the first day of class. “I don’t want to impose.”
I walk away, leaving the door open. “If it’s really gonna be payback, then you have to impose.”
“That’s true.” She steps inside and closes the door behind her.
“How’d you get past the doorman?” I ask.
“Oh,” she says like she’s just remembered something. “Right. He asked me to give you this. I think he assumed you and I were . . . whatever. Anyway.” She holds a plain white envelope in my direction. “Montana stamp. Maybe someone from home?”
I take the letter and turn it over, trying not to linger on the return address. “Thanks,” I say, then tuck it in my back pocket.
“You okay?”
“Always,” I say. It’s not exactly true, but I don’t want to get into it. I turn toward the living room, searching my mind for a way to change the subject. “You haven’t been here since that Halloween party,” I say. “You didn’t come this year.”
“I was working.” She’s standing there like she’s not sure where to go, but then her eyes drift to the paused screen on my TV. “Are you playing video games?”
I pick up the controller and shake it. “You want a turn?”
“You have a concussion,” she says. “You’re not supposed to play video games. Or be on the computer or the phone. No screens at all.”
“Okay, first of all, it’s a mild concussion,” I say. “And I think those are more like guidelines than rules.”
“They’re not.”
“And second of all,” I say, ignoring her, “did you look up the treatment for a concussion?”
She scoffs a no, but wow, is she a bad poker player.
“You sure?” I ask. “Because I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you looked up treatment for a concussion.”
“Whatever. Everyone knows that you can’t be on a screen if you have a concussion.”
“Uh-huh.” I toss the controller on the couch. “Fine. I don’t have to play. But I get bored really easy.”
She rolls her eyes, then lets out a sigh. “How is it . . . really? Your concussion?”
It’s a sincere question. She’s really asking. “It’s good. I mean, not good good, but manageable. Could’ve been worse.”
“It looked . . . not good.”
“It looked gnarly.” I shouldn’t have watched it, but I did. “Seeing my head bounce like that was wild. Looked worse than it was, though.” Every hockey player knows they’re one collision away from the end of their career, which makes me grateful for every second I have on the ice.
We stand there for a long few seconds, then she says, “Your place looks different during the day.” She walks over to the entertainment center and picks up a framed photo I put away when I have people over. She turns. “Is this you?”
“Uh, yeah.” I take the photo and put it back on the shelf, staring at Hunter’s face a beat too long.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” She frowns, and I know she’s seen on my face what I don’t usually show.
I shake my head. “Nah, it’s all good.” I pick up a different photo, this one of my whole family, and hand it to her. “My people.”
She takes it. “I don’t know anyone who actually wears a cowboy hat.” She grins. “Quite the crew. Is that your parents’ house? The porch is amazing.”
“Yep,” I say, suddenly aware of the ache of missing home. “Grew up there.” I pull out my phone, open the photo app, and scroll until I find the photos I’m looking for. I turn it around and show her the screen. “That’s the view.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my gosh.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty spectacular.” I scroll to a drone shot of the house and stables.
“Your family owns all of this land?” She looks at me.
“And more,” I say. “It’s one of the biggest ranches in the state.”
“But here you are in the heart of a city.” She studies me. “You must miss it.”
I nod. “I do. One day I’ll get back home. I just . . . like to seize the day and all that crap.”
She laughs. “‘Seize the day and all that crap.’ You should put that on a T-shirt.”
I smile and put the photo back, the one of me and Hunter catching my eye. “That’s my older brother, uh, Hunter.” I’m surprised I say this. I don’t talk about him. Ever.
“One of the four?” she asks with a smile.
“Uh, no,” I say. “He was the fifth.” I look at her.
The second she understands, her smile fades.
In the photo, we’re out on the homemade ice rink Pop built after a hockey scout sought him out to talk about my brother. Said Hunter had real potential, and that encouragement lit a fire under him like I’d never seen before. Hockey became his whole life.
Our dad said he wanted to support this big dream, so he built the rink as a way to do that. And I became his practice buddy, not because I loved hockey, but because I loved my brother.
Raya puts a hand on my arm, and I realize I zoned out for a second. I pull my hand back from the frame. “Sorry—I don’t really . . .”
“It’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to talk about it.” A pause. “Unless you want to.”
I nod. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She presses her lips together, and we stand there, silent, for a long moment.
I look around the apartment, searching for something—anything—to say. “Do you want to go walk around the city? Some of the Christmas decorations are already up. Have you seen the Macy’s windows?”
She shakes her head.
“Of course, you haven’t because you don’t do fun things.
” I grin, aware that I’m forcing a lightness I absolutely do not feel.
It shouldn’t be this difficult to talk about Hunter after all these years, but it is.
I don’t like dredging it up—it makes me angry.
And helpless. “We could go check them out? Or that German market is open—we could get hot chocolate.”
She hesitates for a beat, then relents. “Fine.”
“Fine?” I exaggerate, blinking in disbelief. “We really are friends now, aren’t we?”
She levels my gaze. “Don’t make me regret it.”
As I grab my shoes, Raya walks over to the wall of windows overlooking the lake. “They said on TV that you make your teammates better.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, they love to say that.”
“Is it true?”
I finish tying one shoe and pull on the other. “I mean, that’s the goal, right? We’re a team, and I can set up the other guys, keep things clean, and apparently get in the way of an oncoming freight train just so your sister’s boyfriend doesn’t get his teeth knocked out”
“Does it bother you?” She turns and looks at me.
I stand. “Does what bother me?”
She shrugs. “Not being the star.”
“Pssh. No,” I say, chuckling. “Believe me, I just feel lucky to be here. I’m never going to be a Burke or a Hawke, but how many people get to say they played with those guys?”
She watches me and, for a second, I feel almost naked, like she’s solving a puzzle about me that I haven’t even started.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m not wanting more, huh?”
She shifts. “Well, kind of, yeah. What’s the point of doing something if you’re not trying to be the best at it?”
With that, I see right into what drives Raya Hart.
And I’m the complete opposite.
“I don’t need to be the best to be happy,” I say.
She doesn’t move.
“Foreign concept to you, right?” I say.
“Yeah, kind of. It seems like a waste of time to do something at the level you do it at, spend all of that time and energy and money, and not want to be the best.”
“My dad always says ‘Perfect is the enemy of great.’ When you take away the need to be perfect, you can be happy with whatever’s left.”
Her eyes go wide. “Wow, that was almost . . . deep.”
“Don’t be so surprised,” I say. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Oh yeah? What other secrets are you hiding?” Her tone is different now, almost playful.
Without hesitation, I turn and say the first thing that pops in my head, “I’m an excellent kisser.”
She doesn’t look away.
I didn’t mean to say that. It was too forward, especially since I meant to keep things light and flirty, and we’re finally on common ground here—but . . .
She doesn’t look away.
I keep my face neutral, a little shocked she isn’t blustering at the comment, but now that I’ve said it out loud, I can’t reel the words back in.
I want to kiss her.
I’ve wanted to kiss her for a very long time.
“I’m really glad you came to check on me, Hart.” The air between us shifts, and I pray I’m not misreading it. I take a step closer and reach up to brush her hair away from her face. She goes completely still, but I know Raya—she’ll let me know if she wants me to back away.
I let my fingers trail down her neck, resting on her collarbone. I rub a thumb over the warm skin there. I want to bring my lips down to that exact spot, to press kisses into her soft skin, along her chin until I reach her lips.
Instinctively, my eyes dip down, not that I need a visual reminder of what her lips look like—I think I’ve got them memorized.
What am I doing? This is Raya.
And yet—she’s not pulling away.
My free hand skims down her back to her hip, my touch so light I bet it doesn’t even register. She doesn’t move. Almost like she’s waiting to see what happens next.
I shift my hand behind her neck as my gaze sweeps up from her mouth to her eyes, and I stare at her. Quiet as she searches my eyes. Does she feel this—whatever it is that’s happening?
Or am I stuck in a daydream?
I draw in a slow breath as she inches closer, our faces only a breath apart. My mind spins. I’m going to kiss Raya.
But then, almost like a flipped switch, she blinks and steps back, hands dropping to her sides. “Wait.”
I freeze, the air tight in my chest.
Crap.
Her breath hitches, and she avoids my eyes. “We should… I, um…I should go.” She brushes past me, moving toward the entryway.
You idiot! I mentally beat myself up. What was I thinking?
The goal was to become her friend. Her friend, you idiot! And the second I make an inch of progress, this is what I do? She’s seeing someone! Yes, it’s new, and no, they’re not exclusive, but still.
I sigh into my hand, then drag it through my hair, knowing I just screwed everything up.
I turn and find her standing near the door, looking lost. That freaked her out. I freaked her out.
“Raya, I—”
“We should go,” she cuts in, tone nervous.
I scrub a hand down my face—I can’t believe what I’m about to say. “Maybe it’s better if I stay here. For now.”
Her face falters for a second, but then she nods. “Right. You should probably rest.”
“Yeah.” I point to my head. “Concussion.”
She nods. “No screens.”
I hold my hands up in front of me. “Promise. And hey, thanks for coming by.”
“Of course.” She nods and turns to leave. She opens the door, but before she walks out, she turns back and looks right into my eyes. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
Right. Friends.
Raya
I shut the door behind me, rush down the hall, and bang on the elevator button, like hitting it a hundred times will make it move faster. I’m holding my breath out of sheer panic.
What. Was. That?
Finn was going to kiss me—and in a horrifying twist I did not see coming—I wanted him to. This doesn’t make sense.
The elevator doors open, and I step inside, frantically pressing the button for the ground floor. Finally, the doors close, and I blow out a slow breath, grateful for the solitude. I lean against the wall and rub circles into my temples, mind spinning.
Okay. Let’s be logical. Finn is a good-looking guy, and he’s been nice to me. And I was worried about his injury. That’s all. There are no emotions here. No feelings.
A momentary lapse in judgment, sparked by the superficial attraction happening between us.
It means nothing.
“It means nothing.” But even as I speak the words aloud, another word creeps into the back of my mind.
Liar.
This is ridiculous. This is Finn. He’s all wrong for me.
I close my eyes, trying to remember all the reasons why that is . . . but the image of his face, watching me with a kind of quiet desperation, appears in my mind.
I open my eyes and drag in a giant, deep breath.
Okay. Enough nonsense. I need to do what I always do and put these ridiculous feelings in a little box and move on. They’ll only get messy.
“Nothing good can come from this, Raya.” I breathe the sentence out loud just as the elevator dings.
And I use the sound as a signal. The end of the round. Closing off whatever this was and shifting back to common sense.